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UCLA Researchers Figured Bin Laden Was In Pakistani City 2 Years Ago

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LOS ANGELES (CBS/AP) — UCLA researchers may have been the first to figure out Osama bin Laden was hiding out in a Pakistani city.

Two years, ago a team of geographers and undergraduate students at the University of California, Los Angeles, decided to try to figure out where bin Laden could be hiding as part of an academic exercise.

Their concept turned out to be generally accurate, although their target was off the mark.

Using satellite imagery and other techniques, they predicted that the terrorist leader was probably not hiding in the mountains. Instead, they said he most likely was inside a walled compound in a Pakistani city.

Unfortunately, their research published in 2009 zeroed in on the northwest Pakistani town of Parachinar — about 300 miles west of where bin Laden was eventually found.

Bin Laden was killed during a raid on a compound in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad.